night

Saturday, May 30, 2020

#798 – DANCE ON A VOLCANO – Genesis - 5/18/2020

On May 18 at 8:32 a.m., a sudden 5.1-magnitude earthquake and eruption shook the earth and Washington state’s Mount St. Helens erupted. It ultimately took the lives of 57, spewing ash as far away as Minnesota. The equivalent of a 24-megaton blast demolished a 230-square-mile area around the mountain. Millions of trees were scorched and burned by the hot air alone. A massive mudslide developed from the instantaneous destruction of the glacier atop the mountain. Twenty-seven bodies were never found. Mount St. Helens went from 9,600 feet high to only 8,300 feet high in a matter of seconds.

I remember first hearing this record on WPLR (New Haven – 99.1). Each week the music director Gordon Weingarth would play cuts from LPs or singles released the previous week. I remember hearing him say this was the band’s first studio album since Peter Gabriel’s leaving as vocalist. I remember him saying that this was a slightly different sound with the drummer, Phil Collins taking over lead vocals. I had never heard of Genesis – let alone Phil Collins - at that point but I did really like this song. Here I sit, some 1,200 miles and 44 years later recapping my first listen. It seems a bit unreal, but this is just one example of why I am a music junkie: small bits of sonic stimulation permanently written into my processor chip.


1976

No comments:

My Top 2500 (So Far)